“
This is the saddest, most depressing music I've ever heard.
It makes me so happy.
”
”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, Vol. 2)
“
We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist. So, for a time, if such a passion come to fruition, the man will get what he wants. He will get the moral support, the encouragement, the relief from the sense of loneliness, the assurance of his own worth. But these things pass away; inevitably they pass away as the shadows pass across sundials. It is sad, but it is so. The pages of the book will become familiar; the beautiful corner of the road will have been turned too many times. Well, this is the saddest story.
”
”
Ford Madox Ford
“
My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world.
”
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Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian)
“
I answer that I try to write true stories but that at a given point the story becomes unbearable because of it’s very truth, and then I have to change it. I tell her that I try to tell my story but all of a sudden I can’t-I don’t have the courage, it hurts too much. And so I embellish everything and describe things not as they happened but the way I wished they happened.
She says, “Yes, there are lives sadder than the saddest of books.” I say, “Yes. No book, no matter how sad, can be as sad as a life.
”
”
Ágota Kristóf (The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie: Three Novels)
“
In the happiest times of my life, I have reached for my books. In the saddest times of my life, my books have reached back.
”
”
Barbara Davis (The Echo of Old Books)
“
I saw the horrible way that people could treat each other. That may be the saddest thing of all. I saw greed and anger and murder and a total lack of concern for human life. It was a wicked side of the human soul that I saw... and it saddened me to know that such a dark place existed.
”
”
D.J. MacHale
“
I find that the books with the saddest endings are the best because it makes us feel. We don’t always get a happily ever after no matter how hard we work for it.
”
”
B. Celeste (Underneath the Sycamore Tree)
“
Some looks are heavier than the thickest books because they carry the saddest stories of life!
”
”
Mehmet Murat ildan
“
What’s this?”
“It’s a napkin used by the saddest girl in the world to dry her tears.”
“Let me guess. Sylvia Plath?”
“No, no one famous. But we knew about her. She gave off so much resonance, it turned our entire map black for one city block.”
“And she was no one special?”
“You wouldn’t recognise her name if I told it to you.”
“So just an everyday, normal person carrying their shopping, reading books at night and going for drinks occasionally with her friends, just some person, that’s the saddest girl in the world?”
“Yes. Just a regular person.
”
”
Iain S. Thomas
“
Life is the saddest thing there is, next to death; yet there are always new countries to see, new books to read (and, I hope, to write), a thousand little daily wonders to marvel at and rejoice in.
”
”
Edith Wharton
“
So the Bible is not so sad in the end?’ ‘Yes, it is the saddest book in the world. We are asked to believe that God has played an infantile trick on us: he has made himself unobservable, as an eternal test of “faith”. What I read, though, is the story of a species cursed by gifts and delusions that it cannot understand. I read of exile, abandonment and the terrible grief of beings who have lost something real – not of a people being put to a childish test, but of those who have lost their guide and parent, friend and only governing instructor and are left to wander in the silent darkness for all eternity. Imagine. And that is why all religion is about absence. Because once, the gods were there. And that is why all poetry and music strike us with this awful longing for what once was ours – because it begins in regions of the brain where once the gods made themselves heard.
”
”
Sebastian Faulks (Human Traces)
“
The saddest part of life will never be about you, but about someone else’s death. The
”
”
Dinah McCall (The Gathering (Prophecy Series Book 3))
“
The cafeteria in the Chicago’s Children’s Memorial Hospital basement was the saddest place in the world—and forever it shall be—with its grim neon lights and gray tabletops and the diffuse foreboding of those who stepped away from suffering children to have a grilled cheese sandwich.
”
”
Aleksandar Hemon (The Book of My Lives)
“
When the occasional customer tells us his or her dream of running a bookstore someday, we recognize our own naivete in that enthusiasm. They may have some inkling about long hours and low pay, but rarely do they know about the fires, the guerrilla bargainers, the bereavements, or the prisons. Neither did we - then. But we sure do now. In all honesty, the scariest, hardest, saddest, and most important stories found in a bookshop aren't in the books, they're in the customers.
”
”
Wendy Welch (The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book)
“
Like most, I was a solitary boy at first, keeping to my books and weeping in the hedgerows whenever I could get away on my own. Surely, I thought, I must be the saddest child in the world; that there must be something innately horrid about me to cause my father to cast me off so heartlessly. I believed that if I could discover what it was, there might be a chance of putting things right, of somehow making it up to him.
”
”
Alan Bradley (The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce, #1))
“
For war was not just a military campaign but also a parable. There were lessons of camaraderie and duty and inscrutable fate. There were lessons of honor and courage, of compassion and sacrifice. And then there was the saddest lesson, to be learned again and again in the coming weeks as they fought across Sicily, and in the coming months as they fought their way back toward a world at peace: that war is corrupting, that it corrodes the soul and tarnishes the spirit, that even the excellent and the superior can be defiled, and that no heart would remain unstained.
”
”
Rick Atkinson (The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (The Liberation Trilogy Book 2))
“
I know you want it back,” he says, “but I’m afraid I’m going to have to
keep it forever.” He holds it up, shows it to me. Grins. And then puts it in
his pocket. The one place I’d never dare to reach.
“Why?” I can’t help but ask. “Why do you want it so much?”
He spends far too long just looking at me. Not answering my question.
And then he says
“On the darkest days you have to search for a spot of brightness, on the
coldest days you have to seek out a spot of warmth; on the bleakest days
you have to keep your eyes onward and upward and on the saddest days you
have to leave them open to let them cry. To then let them dry. To give them a
chance to wash out the pain in order to see fresh and clear once again.”
“I can’t believe you have that memorized,” I whisper.
He leans back again. Closes his eyes again. Says, “Nothing in this life
will ever make sense to me but I can’t help but try to collect the change and
hope it’s enough to pay for our mistakes.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me Series 6-Book Box Set: Shatter Me, Unravel Me, Ignite Me, Restore Me, Defy Me, Imagine Me)
“
A house without books is one of the saddest things in the world
”
”
Mike Ncube (400+ Essential Digital Marketing Tips)
“
Sometimes, the very happiest things come from the very saddest things.
”
”
Donna Goddard (Riverland: For Children and their Young-at-Heart Old Folk (Riverland Series))
“
the happiest times of my life, I have reached for my books. In the saddest times of my life, my books have reached back.
”
”
Barbara Davis (The Echo of Old Books)
“
To him, it would be the saddest ending. But I thought about my family and Jillian. I thought about the lives they led and how special they were. Isn’t it the last chapter of a book that really makes it worth reading? Every story has to end. And everyone thinks death is a sad way to end a story. But that’s just not true. If it is, we are all just walking tragedies.
”
”
Kiera Cass (The Siren)
“
O, may you look, full moon that shines, On my pain for this last time: So many midnights from my desk, I have seen you, keeping watch: When over my books and paper, [390] Saddest friend, you appear! Ah! If on the mountain height I might stand in your sweet light, Float with spirits in mountain caves, Swim the meadows in twilight’ waves, [395] Free from the smoke of knowledge too, Bathe in your health-giving dew!
”
”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Faust: Parts I & II)
“
The saddest people are those who talk about the books they could have written, the garments they could have designed, or the pictures they could have painted - if only ... you do not have to be one of those people.
”
”
Ursula Markham (The Elements of Visualization)
“
I’ve seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.
Anything you have to bet on to get a kick isn’t worth seeing.
To have come on all this new world of writing, with time to read in a city like Paris where there was a way of living well and working, no matter how poor you were, was like having a great treasure given to you.
It has the most happiness in it and it is the saddest book I know. But it comes later.
”
”
Ernest Hemingway (A Moveable Feast)
“
We have a special word for this,” Ralph said in normal volume. “The best translation I can think of is ‘suigenocide.’ It’s the saddest word in our language. Entire species destroyed because they could not think past their own little time period. They didn’t care about future generations, they only cared about themselves, and somehow, no one else mattered.
”
”
Christopher Steinsvold (The Book of Ralph)
“
The saddest thing I came to understand in researching and reporting this book is that so many of our behaviors draw us into them not because they bring joy but because they promise to quiet anxiety. But the most heartening thing was the realization that the ability of compulsive behaviors to quiet anxieties great and small is one of the greatest gifts our brains can give us.
”
”
Sharon Begley (Can't Just Stop: An Investigation of Compulsions)
“
Life is the saddest thing there is, next to death; yet there are always new countries to see, new books to read (and, I hope to write), a thousand little daily wonders to marvel at and rejoice in.... The visible is a daily miracle for those who have eyes and ears; and I still worm my hands thankfully by the old fire, through every year it is fed with the dry wood of more memories.
--A Backward Glance
”
”
Edith Wharton
“
Of the question of the sex-instinct I know very little and I do not think that it counts for very much in a really great passion. It can be aroused by such nothings—by an untied shoelace, by a glance of the eye in passing—that I think it might be left out of the calculation. I don't mean to say that any great passion can exist without a desire for consummation. That seems to me to be a commonplace and to be therefore a matter needing no comment at all. It is a thing, with all its accidents, that must be taken for granted, as, in a novel, or a biography, you take it for granted that the characters have their meals with some regularity. But the real fierceness of desire, the real heat of a passion long continued and withering up the soul of a man is the craving for identity with the woman that he loves. He desires to see with the same eyes, to touch with the same sense of touch, to hear with the same ears, to lose his identity, to be enveloped, to be supported. For, whatever may be said of the relation of the sexes, there is no man who loves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of his courage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will be the mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist. So, for a time, if such a passion come to fruition, the man will get what he wants. He will get the moral support, the encouragement, the relief from the sense of loneliness, the assurance of his own worth. But these things pass away; inevitably they pass away as the shadows pass across sundials. It is sad, but it is so. The pages of the book will become familiar; the beautiful corner of the road will have been turned too many times. Well, this is the saddest story.
”
”
Ford Madox Ford (The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion)
“
The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies.
”
”
Desirée (The Skye Sisters (Skye Indie Film Series Book 1))
“
If only. Those must be the saddest words in the world. —MERCEDES LACKEY
”
”
Ellery Adams (Written in Stone (A Books by the Bay Mystery #4))
“
I find that the books with the saddest endings are the best because they make us feel. We don’t always get a happily ever after no matter how hard we work for it.
”
”
B. Celeste (Underneath the Sycamore Tree)
“
Warriorhood in Marriage and Relationship Conscious fighting is a great help in relationships between men and women. Jung said, “American marriages are the saddest in the whole word, because the man does all his fighting at the office.” When a man and a woman are standing toe-to-toe arguing, what is it that the man wants? Often he does not know. He wants the conflict to end because he is afraid, because he doesn’t know how to fight, because he “doesn’t believe in fighting,” because he never saw his mother and father fight in a fruitful way, because his boundaries are so poorly maintained that every sword thrust penetrates to the very centre of his chest, which is tender and fearful. When shouts of rage come out of the man, it means that his warriors have not been able to protect his chest; the lances have already entered, and it is too late.
”
”
Robert Bly (Iron John: A Book About Men)
“
Stories begin when the last chapter says goodbye, when the last of tender feelings have seen their end, when two people release their saddest sighs, knowing it is time to walk their separate ways. That's when...
”
”
Jayita Bhattacharjee
“
Millions of random events are happening to people daily and out of them some will have incredibly positive experiences, others will have incredibly negative experiences and most will have just average experiences. It is not because life is fair or unfair. It is because life is often random. For every positive will be a negative and vice versa. Your happiest day maybe someone else’s saddest day. Your saddest day maybe someone else’s happiest day. It’s not because life hates you, it’s just because that’s how things are in the universe. It throws out events. It is we who ascribe it with positive or negative qualities.
Regardless of their level of talent or what they truly deserve, probability dictates that some people will win much more often than they lose and some people will lose much more often than they win.
”
”
Anubhav Srivastava (UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life (What They Don't Want You to Know Book 1))
“
Richard Grierson smiles, but it’s an inward-pointing smile, a smile of someone folding himself back up for storage in the colorful corners of his own crayon fantasies. She looks at the books, their titles hazy with a thin film of sawdust, and she looks at the toy ships built for imaginary journeys along the red dotted lines of a child’s map, and she looks at the exotic pictures in the books still open flat before her, and she understands that these places are just places of the mind, and she wants to be able to exalt his wild dreams and imaginings along with her own—but there’s something about them that make them feel like the saddest thing she’s ever seen.
”
”
Alden Bell (The Reapers Are the Angels (Reapers, #1))
“
Two Awesome Hours in the Morning After identifying your MIT, you need to turn it into a calendar item and book it as early in your day as possible. Dan Ariely, a Duke University professor of psychology and behavioral economics, suggests that most people are most productive and have the highest cognitive functioning in the first two hours after they’re fully awake. In a Reditt Ask Me Anything, Ariely wrote: One of the saddest mistakes in time management is the propensity of people to spend the two most productive hours of their day on things that don't require high cognitive capacity (like social media). If we could salvage those precious hours, most of us would be much more successful in accomplishing what we truly want.
”
”
Kevin E. Kruse (15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management: The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, 13 Olympic Athletes, 29 Straight-A Students, and 239 Entrepreneurs)
“
We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found,
”
”
Philip Smith (100 Best-Loved Poems)
“
One of the easiest but saddest thing is to handle desires, dreams and aspirations when you cannot be fulfilled is to ignore, suppress or reject as it never existed.
But it becomes most difficult thing when the desires, dreams and aspirations is of someone who you love, respect and care for.
”
”
Ratish Edwards
“
The saddest consequence which attends the prosperity and success of God’s enemies in the world, is their pride and blasphemy against God, his truth, and church.
”
”
William Gurnall (The Christian in Complete Armour: The Ultimate Book on Spiritual Warfare)
“
For as long as it takes to stop feeling so fucking empty.” And if that wasn’t the saddest thing I’d ever heard from the poor little rich boy.
”
”
E. Winn (Hearts of Fortune (Heirs of Cape Canyon Book 1))
“
Last year for his birthday he asked for a programming book called C Plus Plus, whatever that means.” “My god, Lydia, that’s the saddest thing you’ve ever said.
”
”
Matthew J. Sullivan (Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore)
“
Like pornographers fretting under the burden of their wish dreams, these obscene buffoons suddenly found it unnecessary to assuage their fever among the pages of forbidden books or to pay for relief in some bordello, because a government of lonely fanatics swept into power and gradually lent official sanction to the dirtiest, saddest aspects of human nature, the lack of imagination which leads the ill to put their most libidinous nightmares into practice.
”
”
Peter Ustinov (We Were Only Human)
“
In the early 1980s, historian Jon Halliday asked Genaro Carnero Checa, a radical Peruvian writer and frequent traveler to the DPRK who published a book on the country in 1977 entitled Korea: Rice and Steel, his honest opinion of North Korea. Checa replied, “They fought the North Americans; they have done incredible things in the economy; it’s the only Third World country where everyone has good health, good education and good housing.” Halliday then asked Checa about his view of North Korea as a poet. Checa said, “It is the saddest, most miserable country I’ve ever been in in my life. As a poet, it strikes bleakness into my heart.” Checa’s statements reflect what many in the Third World thought of North Korea during the Cold War era. On one hand, this small nation overcame Japanese imperialism, brought the mighty U.S. military to a standstill in a three-year war, and rapidly rebuilt itself into a modern socialist state. For many struggling peoples in the Third World that recently overcame decades of Western colonialism and imperialism, North Korea’s economic recovery and military prowess were justifiably admirable. On the other hand, the oppressiveness and brutality of the North Korean political system undermined the appeal of the DPRK’s developmental model to the Third World. The growing inefficiencies of North Korea’s economic system also became too obvious to ignore. In fact, Kim Il Sung’s Third World diplomacy may have furthered the DPRK’s domestic economic troubles. A former member of the North Korean elite, Kang Myong- do, said after his defection to South Korea that “excessive aid to Third World countries had caused an actual worsening of North Korea’s already serious economic problems.
”
”
Benjamin R. Young (Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World)
“
In the happiest times of my life, I have reached for my books. In the saddest times of my life, my books have reached back. —Ashlyn Greer, The Care & Feeding of Old Books
”
”
Barbara Davis (The Echo of Old Books)
“
In her passionate and meticulously argued book The Change, Australian feminist writer Germaine Greer suggests that society’s aversion to menopausal women is, more than anything, “the result of our intolerance for the expression of female anger.”5 But why do we find women’s rage so unacceptable, so threatening? It is for sure an attitude which is deeply embedded in the culture. Several studies conducted over the past few decades have reported that men who express anger are perceived to be strong, decisive, and powerful, while women who express the same emotion are perceived to be difficult, overemotional, irrational, shrill, and unfeminine. Anger, it seems, doesn’t fit at all with our cultural image of femininity, and so must be thoroughly suppressed whenever it is presumptuous enough to surface. One of the saddest findings of these studies is that this narrative is so deeply ingrained that it even exists among women — and we internalize it from an early age. Soraya Chemaly, American author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger, writes: Studies show that by the time most children are toddlers they already associate angry expressions with male faces … Girls and women, on the other hand, are subtly encouraged to put anger and other “negative” emotions aside, as unfeminine. Studies show that girls are frequently discouraged from even recognising their own anger, from talking about negative feelings, or being demanding in ways that focus on their own needs. Girls are encouraged to smile more, use their “nice” voices and sublimate how they themselves may feel in deference to the comfort of others. Suppressed, repressed, diverted and ignored anger is now understood as a factor in many “women’s illnesses,” including various forms of disordered eating, autoimmune diseases, chronic fatigue and pain.6 We hide our anger by refusing even to use the word — instead of saying we’re utterly furious, we talk about being “annoyed,” “upset,” or “irritated.” We take refuge in sarcasm, we nurse grudges, or we simply withdraw. And as a consequence of these actions and attitudes, anger is an emotion that, more often than not, makes women feel powerless — not just because we’ve been made to feel as if we’re not allowed to express it, but, accordingly, because we’ve never learned healthy ways to express it.
”
”
Sharon Blackie (Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life)
“
It always seems to me that one of the saddest things about the death of a literary man is the fact that the breaking-up of his collection of books almost invariably follows; the building up of a good library, the work of a lifetime, has been so much labour lost, so far as future generations are concerned. Talent, yes, and genius too, are displayed not only in writing books but also in buying them, and it is a pity that the ruthless hammer of the auctioneer should render so much energy and skill fruitless
”
”
Stuart Dodgson Collingwood (The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll)
“
: In the amazing book Moby Dick by the author Herman Melville, the author recounts his story of being at sea. In the first part of his book, the author, calling himself Ishmael, is in a small sea-side town and he is sharing a bed with a man named Queequeg, and I felt saddest of all when I read the boring chapters that were only descriptions of whales, because I knew that the author was just trying to save us from his own sad story, just for a little while.
”
”
Samuel D. Hunter (The Whale)
“
He had been assessed as having a mental age of eight, but Rosie had discovered he could read a little and she was privately convinced that if books, jigsaw puzzles and board games were provided in the day room, then he could learn a great deal more than he already knew. ‘Get up, Donald,’ she said, resisting the temptation to tickle him and make him laugh more. ‘You can come and help me with the cleaning and making the beds. If you carry on like that all morning, everyone will get cross with you. Me included.’ One of the saddest things of all in Carrington Hall, as far as Rosie was concerned, was that all the patients were lumped together and treated as being on the same level as the most severely retarded ones. Even though she’d only been here for such a short time, with no previous experience of people with mental handicaps, she felt there should be times in the day when the more able ones should be separated and given things to do. She had suggested this to Mary once, but she just laughed at her, and said Matron wouldn’t like it because they’d need more staff. Rosie wasn’t brave enough to do anything Matron didn’t like; she sensed that would be asking for trouble. Besides, no one else on the staff shared her views; they all liked to just sit, chat, read, or knit while the patients shuffled about aimlessly
”
”
Lesley Pearse (Rosie)
“
The saddest thing is a person wasting their life, while the most amazing thing is a person on their way to greatness.
”
”
Ari Gunzburg (The Little Book of Greatness: A Parable About Unlocking Your Destiny)
“
This brings us to the saddest episode int he whole smoking-cancer controversy: the deliberate efforts of the tobacco companies to deceive the public about the health risks. If Nature is like a genie that answers a question truthfully but only exactly as it is asked, imagine how much more difficult it is for scientists to face an adversary that intends to deceive us. The cigarette wars were science’s first confrontation with organized denialism, and no one was prepared.The tobacco companies magnified any shred of scientific controversy they could. They set up their own Tobacco Industry Research Committee, a front organization that gave money to scientists to study issues related to cancer or tobacco—but somehow never got around to the central question. When they could find legitimate skeptics of the smoking-cancer connection—such as R. A.Fisher and Jacob Yerushalmy—the tobacco companies paid them consulting fees.
”
”
Judea Pearl (The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect)
“
I was autographing books at one of those little rattan tables in the bookstore when I found myself looking into the saddest eyes I had ever seen. “The doctor wanted me to buy something that would make me laugh,” she said. I hesitated about signing the book. It would have taken corrective surgery to make that woman laugh. “Is it a big problem?” I asked. The whole line of people was eavesdropping. “Yes. My daughter is getting married.” The line cheered. “Is she twelve or something?” “She’s twenty-four,” said the woman, biting her lip. “And he’s a wonderful man. It’s just that she could have stayed home a few more years.” The woman behind her looked wistful. “We’ve moved three times, and our son keeps finding us. Some women have all the luck.” Isn’t it curious how some mothers don’t know when they’ve done a good job or when it’s basically finished? They figure the longer the kids hang around, the better parents they are. I guess it all depends on how you regard children in the first place. How do you regard yours? Are they like an appliance? The more you have, the more status you command? They’re under warranty to perform at your whim for the first 18 years; then, when they start costing money, you get rid of them? Are they like a used car? You maintain it for years, and when you’re ready to sell it to someone else, you feel a great responsibility to keep it running or it reflects on you? (That’s why some parents never let their children marry good friends.) Are they like an endowment policy? You invest in them for 18 or 20 years, and then for the next 20 years they return dividends that support you in your declining years or they suffer from terminal guilt? Are they like a finely gilded mirror that reflects the image of its owner in every way? On the day the owner looks in and sees a flaw, a crack, a distortion, one tiny idea or attitude that is different from his own, he casts it aside and declares himself a failure? I see children as kites. You spend a lifetime trying to get them off the ground. You run with them until you’re both breathless...they crash...you add a longer tail...they hit the rooftop...you pluck them out of the spout. You patch and comfort, adjust and teach. You watch them lifted by the wind and assure them that someday they’ll fly. Finally they are airborne, but they need more string so you keep letting it out. With each twist of the ball of twine there is a sadness that goes with the joy, because the kite becomes more distant, and somehow you know it won’t be long before that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that bound you together and soar as it was meant to soar—free and alone. Only then do you know that you did your job.
”
”
Erma Bombeck (Forever, Erma)
“
Attendre et espérer’?” repeated Alma. “To me they are the saddest words in human language. They are so seldom the joy-bells to herald a new future — they are’ so often the death-knell to a past wasted in futile striving and disappointed desire. ‘Attendre et espérer!’ How many golden days pass in trusting to those words; and when their trust be at last recompensed, how often the fulfilment comes too late to be enjoyed. ‘Attendre et espérer!’ Ah! that is all very well for those who have some fixed goal in view — some aim which they will attain if they have but energy and patience enough to go steadily on to the end; but only to wait for an indefinite better fate, which year after year retreats still farther — only to hope against hope for what never comes and in all probability will never come — that is not quite so easy.
”
”
Ouida (Delphi Collected Works of Ouida (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 26))
“
Absalom, Absalom! uses the fractured mind of a boy who seems already half-ghost to present the family history of “the son who widowed the daughter who had not yet been a bride.” No one can read it quickly or even entirely with pleasure, but anyone who can hear its flowered dissonance will know that such books are why we read at all.
”
”
Michael Gorra (The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War)